ATREEUM

MEIXNER SCHLUETER WENDT

Client: OFB Projektentwicklung

Atreeum office building – a green working oasis in Frankfurt's Ostend district

The Atreeum office building is located near the European Central Bank in eastern Frankfurt. It is an extraordinary building that innovatively develops traditional typologies such as the Moroccan riad. With its dark clinker bricks and minimalist window slits, the façade is reminiscent of the site's former industrial and craft traditions and also protects against emissions from the surrounding area. Inside, it presents itself as a shady green working oasis with high air quality. In the planted courtyards and diverse outdoor workspaces on roof terraces and balconies, nature is used as a building material, so to speak. The former commercial and industrial area on the eastern edge of Frankfurt's city center along Hanauer Landstraße has developed into an attractive office and residential location. The Atreeum, which occupies the entire depth of a block, fits perfectly into this context of perimeter block development consisting of typical brick buildings. The varying heights of the surrounding buildings are reflected in the differentiated height gradations of the new office building. The sculptural, three- to eight-story structure has a stepped height development that forms urban high points at the corners and at the same time allows for optimized lighting in the courtyards. While the building appears rather abstract from the outside with its vertical slits, the volume dissolves into horizontal layers towards the two atriums. The powerful building envelope, made of narrow, vertically placed clinker bricks, wraps around the introverted inner courtyards like a protective shell, to which the office floors open up with glass facades. The courtyards are connected to the urban space by two-story passageways. Water, sun, light, and greenery: what fountains and pools are in a riad or late Roman atrium courtyard, retention areas are in the Atreeum—water-storing areas on the roof terraces and in the courtyards. These areas allow rainwater to be released into the sewer system with a time delay, but above all, they serve to naturally irrigate the plants in the courtyards and on the roof terraces. This green landscape – trees, shrubs, climbing plants on free-standing trellises and scaffolding – creates a healthy and natural microclimate in the courtyards and inside the building. The air quality is improved by evaporation from the leaves of the green plants, and their shade also noticeably reduces the temperatures in the courtyards. Shady pavilions and arbors, as well as balconies facing the green atriums, become places for communication. The spatial structure offers a wide range of opportunities for social encounters, interaction, and new working environments. Photovoltaics, concrete core activation, fresh air circulation, and night cooling: the Atreeum is not only state-of-the-art in terms of building technology, this office building goes one step further: nature takes on a new role as a building material – with very specific functions and great opportunities. The Atreeum represents a sustainable, green, lively, and livable working environment.